


The Mage, the Thief, and the Prince

by PrussiaSheiala



Series: Mark, Jackson and Namjoon ship week! [6]
Category: GOT7, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: M/M, Mage Namjoon, Magic, Middle Ages, Prince Mark, Slow Burn, Tamora Pierce Universe, Theive King Jackson, Tortall Universe, healer namjoon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 07:00:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15189347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrussiaSheiala/pseuds/PrussiaSheiala
Summary: Have you ever heard the story of the Mage, the thief, and the prince?No? Let me tell you then. Many years ago, in the land of Yamani, a crown prince was born to the royal monarchs. He was like no other prince they had ever seen, more beautiful than any princess of legends.





	The Mage, the Thief, and the Prince

**Author's Note:**

> Day 6! This is way way to long
> 
> The universe borrowed for this story is Tamora Pierces Tortall universe! She was the author that inspired me to write, and I always was sad we never got to see more of the other countries!

Have you ever heard the story of the Mage, the thief, and the prince?

No? Let me tell you then. Many years ago, in the land of Yamani, a crown prince was born to the reigning monarchs. He was like no other prince they had ever seen, more beautiful than any princess of legends.

His people's natural hair colours was dark shades of brown and black, but this child was different. He was born with his people’s features, but hair as white as snow. Not the white of the Tortall or Scanra people, that was the yellow of fields, no the white of snow. Even as a baby, his eyes were said to pierce the soul of any he looked at, as deep as wells and as dark as night.

The queen called a seer to the birthing room to get the child's future read, the queen a kind lady with a heart of gold knew that her child was special, she wanted to know what the gods had in store for the young prince.

As the seer came to the bedchamber and ran his magic over the young crown prince, everything seemed to stop for a moment, and a shape of light took over the seers body, and a shape of a much bigger man took him in a fiery red light “Your child will bring great change to this kingdom! He is destined for greatness! When the time is right, and everything seems lost, he will unit three factions that see no common goal, and united as one strike a final blow to the enemy of this kingdom's future!”

The voice was known to all people in the Yamani islands, both young and old, it was the great patron god of the islands, Yama. All Yamani people considered themselves as children of Yama, nobody would ever dare the question her words.

So the prophecy was spoken, in the time of need, the crown prince would be the one to save them. So he was given the name Mark, meaning the god of war.

See there were many ways to read the prophecy, the king read it as Mark would become a great war leader, hence the name. The queen, on the other hand, could see that war leader was not in her son’s future. Mark wasn’t meant for war, Mark was sweet and soft, but also a mischievous and daring at times.

He hated the long war meetings that his father dragged him to, he didn’t want to lead wars, he didn’t want to take his shield and knighthood! He wanted to lead his people with wit and grace, he wanted to lead his people by diplomacy, not by a sword. Fuck swords.

But that only introduces the prince to our story, time to introduce the rest don’t you think? Shortly after Mark’s birth, in the deepest deep of the capital's slum, a child was born. The child's mother, a simple nobody lady of the night, ended up dying in childbirth, since she was so poor she could not afford either a healer nor a midwife to be at her birth, which was why she died trying to deliver the baby herself.

As she died, the baby was left on the ground screaming his lungs out. He would have died if it hadn’t been for a stroke of luck, many children in the slums died this way, and nobody would miss him, but a man walked past the house only 10 minutes later.

To call it a house would probably be a lie, it was more falling into pieces than it was standing, it was why the man could look through the wall to see into the room. To this day, the man swore that he had seen a godly light shine bright on the child, it was the reason why he actually ventured in there to pick up the newborn after realising the faith that had struck the mother.

The man would end up taking in the newborn as his own, naming him Jackson, a name that showed that the gods had shown him a favour. The stranger wasn’t actually from the slums, he was from the lower city where he owned a tavern, there he would take Jackson and raise him.

If you asked Jackson, he had a good childhood, he was lucky, he loved the man that he chose to see as his father, but things wouldn’t stay that way. Jackson was 12 when the crown shut down his father's tavern, there had been an epidemic breakout, and they needed to shut it down for safety reasons.

The thing was, the tavern was all they had! Without it, they would be on the streets! Jackson’s dad was too old to survive there! They lived day to day with their pay! Jackson had pleaded with the guards, trying to get them to understand! The guards refused to understand, and they were thrown on the streets.

Jackson had tried to provide for the older man and himself, but he was just a child, he couldn’t do it, and just 1 week later, the old man would pass due to the illness and being on the streets.

He thought he would die in the streets, but once again luck shined down on him, this time in the form of the thieves king that would take him in. He taught Jackson the trait, and it turned out that Jackson had a talent for it.

Years would pass, and Jackson would develop a hatred for the king and the king, he didn’t care that it was the better thing to do. They had killed his father, and if it had not been because of them, his mother wouldn’t have died given birth to him! Other countries were helping the poor and allowing them access to cheap healers! But not the islands!

As the thief king passed away, Jackson was 19, and a power vacuum was about to occur as a new thief king had to be found for the underground to run smoothly. Jackson killed 7 different people to get the spot, but he got it in the end.

From that day on he was the king of the thieves, king of the underground, this was his first step in his revenge. The islands were gonna regret everything they had ever done to him.

You can start to see where it is going, can’t you? But we still have one more person to introduce, the mage. Born a year later than the other two males, Namjoon was special in another way. He didn’t know who his parents were, he was placed on the footsteps of the Yamani university for magic, and it was quickly clear for the people there why he had been placed there, he was one of the strongest healers that they had ever seen, and he was just a baby.

At first, Namjoon had been placed with the priesthood, that was where they noticed just how strong his powers where. The priest who had been put in charge of him cut his finger while trying to sharpen his pen, the wound instantly healed, and Namjoon was happily gurgling and laughing in his little crib.

After that Namjoon was moved to be taken care off by the lead healer of the university, a fairly young woman for her position, only just reached 30, but she was happy to take care of Namjoon. He was an easy baby, and as he would slowly grow up an even easier child. He clearly loved learned, loved everything about it.

Namjoon wasn’t stupid tho, if anything he was way too smart for his own good, he knew people were talking about him, he knew that everybody at the university was wondering what he was gonna end up doing, but Namjoon ignored them. His life was to short for him to spend time wondering what others thought of him.

So he practised, and he learned, he learned to heal with his magic, he learned about people and the community around him, he learned how to have compassion, and he learned to love, but there was one thing that he was always missed, one thing that nobody would let him. Was to go out into the slums.

Namjoon wanted to go and help the slums, he had heard so much about them, most of the people at the university talked about them like people from the slum weren’t even real people. Like they were just dogs that didn’t deserve their help, but Namjoon knew better! One of the first things he had learned as a healer was that everybody deserved help, and he had sworn to help all the people he could! So why were they keeping him here? There were people he needed to help!

On his 19th birthday he had decided that enough was enough, he was done being kept behind these doors! He was done helping only the people that was ‘okay’ for him to help! People in the slums needed his help, and Namjoon was going to give it to them!

Sneaking out turned out actually be pretty easy, then again the university and high town prepared for somebody trying to sneak into it, not out of it. Bringing his backpack and tons of supplies that he had bought himself, he set out for the slums. He wasn’t completely sheltered, he had been midtown and to low town before, yes when he went too low town it was with guards, and it had been to help people, but still… Couldn’t be that different right?

So at 19 Namjoon decided to sneak into the slum, in the royal palace, another person was getting ready to sneak out, that person was crown prince Mark. He had spent all of his time preparing for war, a war that Mark was getting pretty sure wasn’t actually coming! He felt that it was about time that he should meet some of the people that he was supposed to lead.

Mark wasn’t stupid, he knew that there were problems in the slums, problems that people were trying to keep away from him, but he was not gonna have it! He was going to lead his people someday, how would he do that when all he knew was have to lead a bloody army?

That was how it all started, that evening, the prophecy set into gear.

Things didn’t go swimmingly from the start for Namjoon, first of all, he probably should have dressed down before coming down to the slums, he hadn’t thought about that. He had put on his most comfortable close to heal in, he had focused on that, but it was okay! He could ignore that fact and move along.

He knew he was getting a few weird stares, but the magical light he was holding lit in his hand seemed to be keeping him from getting mugged, not that Namjoon was aware of that, he just thought it was normal like that.

The slums weren’t as he had expected, he had expected to fall over people to help and to hell, whenever they had gone to lowtown people had always been almost falling over themselves to get some help.

In the slums it seemed too different, it was like people were avoiding him, Namjoon could see them watching from the sides, but as soon as he turned towards the stares, the people were gone. It took him almost an hour of walking in the cold, dirty slums for something to finally happen. A child no older than 6 at best had found his way to Namjoon “my mum says that is the sign of healers.” he was pointing towards the mark on Namjoon’s tunic on and on his armband.

Proudly Namjoon nodded “it is indeed, as healers we serve to the mother goddess, we have sworn to help all the people in need of us.”

The child was clearly hesitating “we aren’t supposed to talk to outsiders.”

That was when Namjoon realised that something was wrong, he loved children, and he spent as much time with them as possible, this child was clearly hiding something and desperately needed help if he had dared to defy an order he had gotten from an adult.

He kneeled down, ignoring how his expensive robe was getting dipped in mud and god knows what else “Does somebody need a healer? I swear on the great mother goddess, Yama and Mithros that I would never hurt anybody.”

Namjoon having invoked all of the three biggest gods of the islands seemed to have the desired effect on the young child, nobody would dare swear on the gods and break that promise. Breaking a promise sworn on the gods always insured that you would regret that life choice.

“My sister, she has the sweating sickness,” the child was clearly desperate “We have tried to keep her temperature down, but we can't.”

The sweating sickness was the commoner name for what the healers knew as influenza, it was a common illness to get, it could easily lead to the death of the patient, but it was easily treated by even a weak healer.

“Please show me to her,” Namjoon’s face was serious now, the sweating sickness could kill children easily if they didn’t get help.

“Can you really help her?” the child looked surprised and a little hesitant like he hadn’t expected the answer he got.

Namjoon just nodded, and that was enough for the child it seemed as he started to show the healer towards his living place. While they walked, Namjoon asked different questions about his injured sister, he also noticed how the young child was pulling a little on his leg “is there something wrong with your leg?”

“I didn’t get out of the way of the guards fast enough, the kicked me.” Namjoon was horrified guards were meant to help people not injure them! And the young child had said it so matter of factly like it was something completely normal! Something that just happened all the times.

“Please stop quickly, I can fix it!” Namjoon couldn’t just let him go on like that, he had to be in pain and Namjoon refused to accept that.

The child shook his head “no please save your powers for my sister.” he looked… scared? Like he thought Namjoon wouldn’t have enough power to save his sister and fix his leg.

Namjoon knew that he couldn’t convince the younger that it was no problem, this child clearly had never heard of him, he didn’t know just how much power Namjoon had, “will you let me fix your leg after I have helped your sister?”

For a second, it seemed like the child wanted to argue, clearly not believing Namjoon, but he decided against it, just nodding and continuing the walk. What really strikes Namjoon, was just how mature this child was, was that how all children of the slum were? Forced to grow up way before their time?

Namjoon could see who the patient was the second the child showed him into the room, a woman who looked to be no older than Namjoon was sitting next to a child… no, a baby… who was sweating profusely?

He found himself quickly going to the patient's side, looking at the woman “is this your child?” he kept his voice soft and nice as he had learned from years of being trained as a healer.

She shook her head “youngest sibling.”

“Where are your parents?” There were 5 children in this room, but there were no adults.

“Dad dead, mother missing probably trying to earn some coin to see a healer. Who are you? What are you doing here? She doesn’t have a new form of plague, you can’t take her from us!” the venom in her voice was something Namjoon wasn't used to, people treated healers with respect normally.

“My name is Namjoon, I am a healer, I am here to look at your sister, I promise I am not gonna try and take her away from you.” he showed he the crest on his tunic “I would never do that, I took vows to lessen the suffering of humanity, to serve people. Taking her away from you all would hurt her and you, but please, I need a little bit of space to work with.”

At that, she looked distraught “a healer? We don’t have the coin to pay you!” she looked at her brother “why did you go and get a healer! You know we can’t pay him! And you shouldn’t go to lowtown! If the guards caught you, they would have killed him.”

It informed Namjoon of many things that he didn’t want to think about, why would the guards kill a poor child? Where was the slum healers? There was supposed to be healers here in the slums working for free! What was going on?

He looked at her, as serious as possible “What is your name?”

“Yongsun, she is Hyejin, and the one who got you here was Hyunseok. We really don’t have the coin to pay you” She looked so desperate, she knew that Hyejin would die without his help, and he felt disgusted by the system that had clearly let her down so many times.

He took her hand in his, her hand rough from years of living and growing up in the slums and his soft from all the medicins that he had worked with, “I promise, I am not here for coin, I just wanna help you. If you let me, I can make sure she will survive.”

She clearly didn’t trust him, but what other choice did she have, Hyejin would die, and Yongsun couldn’t take more death, she had suffered through enough of it, “please save her.”

At that she backed off and let Namjoon work, putting his hands on the young girl's chest and forehead he let his gift flow through her, it was indeed influenza, but luckily it hadn’t yet done permanent damage to her. Namjoon easily smothered the disease with his magic chasing it out of its host body and burning it.

Half an hour had past when he finally opened his eyes, and looked at Yongsun, in all that time the woman hadn’t moved even an inch, just sat there and stared at Namjoon working “she is gonna live, I also fixed a few other old injuries she had.”

For a second Yongsun didn’t seem to actually believe what had happened, she put a had on Hyujin’s forehead “the fever is gone!”

“Yes, she is gonna sleep a for a while, but after that, she will be back to normal. She will be weak, but it’s cause her body has stayed in the same position for a while, and the illness has been burning away on her muscles, but she is going to make a full recovery, I promise you!” Namjoon ran his magic through Hyujin’s body one last time “may I look the rest of you over for injuries?”

Namjoon ended up spending the next few hours looking over all of the members of the family to check for any form of injuries, healing all the ones he found. When he finally finished, Yongsun was in tears thanking him, it was like she couldn’t believe that somebody with magic would actually help them like that and that just hurt Namjoon more.

He ended up taking his leave shortly after but asking all of the members of the family to gather all the friends they had that needed healing, as he would be back the next day. Namjoon had seen all the suffering in the slums at that point, he refused to back down at that point.

He knew that he would have to return home to the university for the rest of the night and do his morning duties, a search for him would start if he weren’t home when the morning bells sounded.

He never made it out of the slums, he ended up getting grabbed from behind and a piece of cloth put over his mouth, Namjoon tried to free himself, but his magic wasn’t meant to hurt people, and his struggle was useless. The last thought he had before he went unconscious was ‘Chloroform? That’s a little too expensive for the slums isn’t it?’

When Namjoon woke up again he was bound sitting on the ground, in front of him was a man in a throne that Namjoon had never seen before. His stare was cold, and he was holding and throwing a tiny throwing dagger up and down in a way that showed how familiar the man actually was with the weapon “oh you finally woke up. Your little friend seemed to be getting worried.”

“I told you I don’t know him!” Namjoon wasn’t sitting in a way so he could see the other man in the room, somewhere in his confused mind he was sure that he had heard that voice before somewhere.

The man on the throne just let out a short laugh “and you want me to believe that?” He looked at the two males in front of him like they were worth nothing “you want me to believe that the prophecy crown princess and the god blessed healer just both stumble into my slums for the first time ever at the same time without it being planned.”

That was when Namjoon realised who both males were, the one captured was crown prince Mark, and the man on the throne was Jackson, king of thieves. Namjoon had heard many stories about this man, and suddenly he was angry.

“The healers and the thieves guild are supposed to have a peace deal between us! You are supposed to allow us into the slumps to do our job! To help people! But you attack me, is that why there is nobody else? Cause you attack them as soon as they dare go in here? The people here are suffering! They need help!” Namjoon was angry, he hated suffering, and this man was the reason for so much of it.

Earlier he had wanted to blame the crown itself, maybe even the healers themselves, but now he had found something else to blame. But Jackson just laughed at him “we tried to keep your kind kidnapped our children under the name of helping them! We thought you did! We trusted you! But instead, you started to experiment on them! When we finally got one of them back, they told us everything you people had done to them! And now you wanna do it again! You monster!”

“You really think they would have told him or made him part of any of that!” Namjoon had only seen crown prince Mark once, and that had been shadowing his teacher, he had liked the young crown prince. “He is god sent, a healer! His magic can’t even hurt people! You think they would even dare to do things close to him! He has no idea what you're talking about.”

“I thought you said that you guys didn’t know each other, but now you seem to know tons of things about him.” Jackson sounded smug.

“I don’t know him personally, but everybody has heard of the god sent healer, just like I know you are Jackson Wang the thieves king, that doesn’t mean that I ‘know’ you.”

Jackson stared at Mark, well Namjoon assumed he stared at Mark, he couldn’t actually see Mark “If you say so, doesn’t explain what either of you is doing here, you don’t belong here.”

“I just wanted to help, I just wanted to heal people! I have spent most of the day with a family here in the slums, healing them and their sister!” While yes Namjoon was scared that he was probably about to die, but if he had to die, he wanted to at least die defending himself. He didn’t wanna die having somebody believe that he would harm children.

“So you just suddenly decide to lower yourself to help the slums, even if you have shown no interest in it before. I don’t believe you.” if everything Jackson said was true, then Namjoon couldn’t blame him for not believing him. What had the mages been doing? Why was the crown not stopping them?

“I took vows to help people, I just reached 18 today, nobody knows I went here! We aren't supposed to go here, but I just wanted to help. I promise I am not here to kidnap kids!”

“Mithros flaming knickers! Just let him go, he clearly just want to help people!” the tone of the crown prince showed that he was clearly losing his patients with Jackson.

“And what is your excuse?”

At that Mark did sound a little bit more guilty, but Namjoon could hear in his voice that he was speaking the truth when he spoke up “Stuff is going on here in the slums, and everybody is hiding it from me. They are focusing so hard on me being a military leader, but I don’t want to fight in a war! I want to lead my people, and how can we be a people if half of the people are dying in the slums.”

Jackson had stopped throwing his dagger up and down and was now staring down Mark with a calculating facial expression “swear on the gods and on prince Youngjae’s life.”

It was very well known that Mark adored his younger brother Prince Youngjae, and there was no way that Mark would break a promise made on his life “I swear by Yama and Mithros and on Youngjae’s life that I am just here cause I want to know more about my people. I know something is going down here, and I want to learn and make it better.” for a second the younger hesitated, but seemed to decide that whatever he had to say was worth it “My dad is gonna step back in one year, when I reach 20 I will take over as king. I don’t want to have my reign to be one of war, it doesn’t look like there is actually gonna be a war. I think the threat to the future of the kingdom is a civil war, the mages, the nobles and the commoners are having unrest between each other, and I want to learn about both so I can help and defend them.”

That was when all three of them seemed to realise something, they were three factions in that room, they were the mages represented by Namjoon, the commoners represented by Jackson and the nobles represented by Mark. These were the 3 factions that Mark was destined to unite.

Jackson seemed the most hesitant out of them, but Namjoon surprisingly was the one to speak up “if there is to be a civil war, even if the commoners were to win, think about how many people would die. I don’t know what has been going on, but we can change this, I don’t want to see anybody die or anybody suffer.”

He finally managed to wriggle out of his ropes holding him, sighing in contentment as he stretched the arms in front of him wiggling his fingers to get blood into them again, Jackson was up from his throne “how did you get out of those? They are immune to magic!” he was almost growling at Namjoon for that.

Namjoon just shrugged smiling at Jackson “you are right, I couldn’t do anything to the ropes, but they don’t neutralise my magic, as a healer I have perfect control of my body. I forced it to produce my sweat and oil around my wrists, that was I could slip them off.” he smiled a dimpled smile at Jackson, this guy might be the king of the thieves, but Namjoon was smart and good at reading people.

It was clear that Jackson had issues with nobles and mages, Namjoon knew from his training that most of these issues came from childhood, but it was also clear that Jackson cared deeply about the people of the slums and commoners in general, he looked back at the crown prince and saw Mark for the first time that day.

Mark had clearly tried to fit in a lot more than Namjoon had, he was wearing more worn out clothing instead of his royal outfit, but all of his cloth was clearly of way too good quality to fit into the slums. He still looked good tho, it had struck Namjoon before, just how good looking a man Mark was, his white hair had ended up as a trend that university students tried to mimic. Even Namjoon himself had tried it, it was the reason that his hair was much much lighter than normal. Much more akin to the hair colour of Scanra’s, cause it was simply impossible to get the hair colour of Marks' hair.

“I don’t trust either of you, I know what this seems like, but the nobles and the mages have stomped upon the commoners for too long, you leave us in the worst place in town, you kidnap our children, and every time there is a war we are the first people to suffer.” He stared Mark down “it is your fault that this is happening, we know what happens when we go to war, we know it is us who will die. We will not stand for it again.”

“But there is no war coming! This is our war! A civil war! And it is still the commoners who will suffer the most! We can stop this! Think about it!” Mark was openly pleading with the thieves king at that point “please just listen to me. I don’t want to be the king that hurts the kingdom, to hurt the commoners. I want to make it better for the commoners! I know that Tortall has done the same! We can do that as well!”

“I could also just kill you here, and now, you are the warrior prince, we would be much better off with Prince Youngjae on the throne.”

“If you kill me now do you really think that father is gonna give the throne over to Youngjae? He is gonna keep it, and we both know he doesn’t care for the commoners.” Mark was at that point almost pleading with Jackson, trying to convince the thieves king of his words.

Namjoon was thinking over all the things that he had ever heard of Jackson and Mark, thinking over all he had heard about the thieves king. Trying to put it all together in his head everything he had ever heard about the prophecy. If everything he thought was true, then it was much worse in the islands than Namjoon thought, he knew that the mages were tired of the nobles restriction on them and he knew that a lot of mages thought they were better than the commoners.

Jackson was hesitant as well, it was clear that why he was a rogue, a thieves king, he cared about the people under him and around him, he wanted what was best for them. Then Namjoon remembered something. It was a rumour he had heard when Jackson had first taken the throne “the rumours are that you are god chosen as well? That you were found with a light shining on you, that it was the only reason you were found as a baby.”

“Where have you heard this story?” Jackson’s voice was defensive as he stared down Namjoon.

The young healer just shrugged “I always listen closely when people talk about god picked people, I always felt that if I learn more about people like me. I can understand why I was picked and blessed.” he settled into a more comfortable position now that he was no longer bound, rubbing his wrists “I think I am starting to get it now, when I was younger I couldn't understand why I was picked, why I was chosen, but I think this is the reason. I think you guys are the reason.”

“You don’t know if those rumours are true! They could just be rumours.”

“Your reaction is enough to tell me it’s true.” Namjoon smiled the kindest smile he could at Jackson “It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, the prophecy said that Mark would bring great change to the country didn’t it? What if the change is for the better? It’s meant to unit three factions, the mages, the commoners and the nobles. It says unit! Not let one live in submission, we can all lift each other up! A lot of the commoners have magic, they have to have, that is just statics!”

“You aren’t the leader of the mages or the university, why would you be chosen and no the actual leader.” Mark’s voice was critical.

Namjoon shrugged again “I am to be the leader of the healers, where the healers go the mages follow. They need us, without the healer's mages would die every time they pushed themselves a little too far. A lot of the younger mages coming up are more favourable towards the commoners than the older generation is, yes there are meatheads with family pride, but it would be easy to convince them.

We don’t even know if I’m commoner or noble, I was given to the university as a child when you become a mage you give up all your claims to land and your status, we see ourselves as mages. It is correct that only nobles and the high ranking merchant gets to send their sons or daughters to train as a mage, but we can change that!”

Namjoon was aware that he was pleading with Jackson at that point, the thing was when Namjoon first decided on something, he didn’t know how to get it out of his head, and after so many years he had finally found his purpose, he had finally found the reason why he was chosen, the reason why he was here. He was chosen to help heal the islands, he had learned that not all wounds were physical, and the wounds in the islands were mental, the wounds were the attitude of the islands. But it was something that Namjoon believed that they could fix together!

“You both speak such big talk, but you have nothing to lose in this! If this fails you guys aren’t the ones that have to suffer,”

“I will swear it in blood to you, as a mage he” he pointed at Namjoon “can bind the promise to us, that way none of us can cheat each other.” Mark was right, but it also showed how serious he was, swearing something in blood meant that if you broke the promise, your blood would set fire to your insides, and slowly kill you painfully.

Namjoon was quick at nodding, the magic used for the spell was very simple “I will do the same. I will swear it in blood.”

He wasn’t sure how, but Namjoon just knew that it all depended on Jackson answer, history was about to be made depending on the answer that the man was gonna come with. For a second everybody was holding their breath, what was the answer gonna be, what kind of history was gonna be made.

Then Jackson just sighed “okay, let's do this, but remember, I am not doing this for you guys, or for the nobles or the mages, I am doing this for my people.”

“For the people,” both Mark and Namjoon agreed.

They ended up untying Mark, and then for almost two hours they sat and worked on the blood contract when the midnight struck they had a finished piece of paper and all their name signed in their own blood. Namjoon stood and dusted himself of “now that it’s done, I should get back, if they see I am gone they will think I have gotten kidnapped, I don’t even wanna know extremes mum is gonna go to to find me if that happened.”

“Mum? I thought you were an orphan?” the crown had gotten himself much more comfortable, sitting next to Jackson reading the paper over one last time.

A blush spread on Namjoon’s tan cheeks “the leader healer, she has been my mum since I was found. She took me in, and for me, it just made sense that she would be my mother. She always told me that you don’t have a family, you choose a family. And I choose her.” he smiled a dimpled smile “, but I will admit, I have no idea where we are, is there a chance that somebody can show me out? I don’t want to stumble over something I shouldn’t see. Plus I want to meet with you tomorrow Jackson, to start talking about setting up clinics and teaching slum children.”

“You are sure you can’t teach them stuff war magic and other forms of that, we could use it.”

At that Namjoon’s eyes turned hard “I can’t do that type of magic, but even if I could, I wouldn’t teach it. I will teach them to heal, to be better for their community and to help everybody grow. Later, when time is right. They will join the university and our ranks. At that point they will be free to study anything, as we grow here in the slums, I will bring in others to help me teach, but non of them is gonna be war focused. I know you want to defend your people, but I won't put that blood on my hands… no, I can’t do it. You have to understand, I can’t do it.”

Namjoon went from scolding, to being angry, to then pleading. He was staring at his own hands,, they were shaking in front of him like he could see blood on them that only he could see. Both Mark and Jackson exchanged a look, they knew that there was more of the healer than what was meeting the eyes. A story that wasn’t told to them yet, but they also knew that they couldn’t yet push him to tell it to them, they didn’t know each other well enough.

Jackson seemed to understand that he was taking it a little to far “it’s okay, I understand. I will show both of you home, I think it’s time for our crown prince to get home as well. If our plan has to work, we can’t have them know what our dear prince is up to.”

In the hours of them working on the document, Jackson had started slowly relaxing around them more and more, he couldn’t explain why, but it was like this was always meant to happen. He felt relax and at home near the two other men.

He ended up showing Namjoon and Mark through the tunnels to both the university and to high town, he knew that they had given a lot up for his comfort and showed him a lot of trusts, if he had to make this work for his people then he needed to work with them.

Namjoon ended up giving them a piece of paper, what when of them wrote on it would be seen on the other piece until the owner had seen it. He warned them that if they weren’t the first that got to the paper, other people would still be able to see it. So they should either keep it where nobody would find it or keep it on their person and check it frequently.

After that Jackson showed Mark back to high town, the thieves had no tunnels leading straight to the palace so it was the closest that he could get the crown prince. It still made Mark stop and stare for a second “so this is how you guys get in and out? You could kill half of the city in their bed if you wanted to.”

Jackson just shrugged “but that would be no help for us, the crown always knows that the court of the rogue exists, we need to be here, we might be rogues and thieves, but we keep the peace, and we have morals.”

“I know that I was just… I think it is really hitting me how bad a civil war could have ended for everybody.” Mark shrugged a little looking over at Jackson “I will try to come and talk with you as much as I can so we can prepare for when I take over the crown. But as I told you, I need to gather support from the nobles as well.”

“I understand,” Jackson might be eager for change, but he wasn’t stupid; he knew that it wasn’t just a split second change.

A goodbye was set, and the change had put into place.

The next many months, the men would work together to slowly prepare for change, Namjoon and Mark would gather allies in their own ranks while getting to know the underground and the slums more. Namjoon would slowly with the help of some of the mages set up clinics in the slums and lowtown, where they would start teaching children with the gift the basics of healing.

They would also teach parents and the oldest of siblings the trade of the herb growing, the slums had very fertilised ground, and herbs didn’t need a lot of space to grow. With that knowledge they could start to sell medical herbs to both healers with the gift and healers without it, herbs were always needed for medicine, and it was giving people who desperately needed it a skill.

Mark was learning about the lowtown and slum people, dressed like a normal person; he would visit people with the help of Jackson, learn about their needs and want. Learn that they were human as well.

As their plan slowly grew, they slowly grew closer to each other. It wasn’t just work anymore, it wasn’t just that they were their jobs, they were now real people to each other, real friends. Their messages were no longer just that off business, it was Namjoon and Jackson telling Mark to be careful as he went on a state visit to another country, it was Namjoon fixing up Jackson when some eager pipsqueak had sneaked up on him trying his hand on being the next king of the thieves.

Their friendship had grown to be one of the closest that either of the men had ever had, and all of them was slowly getting more and more aware of the feeling bubbling under the surface.

Those feelings were about to get tested, it had been 7 months at that point, everything in their plan was going well, too well it seemed.

It was a cold winter morning when somebody knocked on Jackson’s door waking him from his slumber. Quickly rolling into some cloth, Jackson gave the okay for whoever was outside to enter his private chamber.

In came his second in command more or less dragging an elderly lady, who was loudly protesting for Jaebum to get his dirty fingers off her.

Jackson had a mix of emotions as he realised who it was “please let her go, that is the leader of the healers.” Namjoon’s mother.

“Good to know that at least somebody here has half a brain.” she was dusting off her robes where Jaebum had touched him, “now send your dog away, I need to talk to you and just you.”

“Are you here to lecture me about getting close to Namjoon? Telling me to back off, that I shouldn’t talk to him cause he is a god-chosen healer and I am just a person from the slum? Here to threaten me?” Jackson refused to let this old lady question his friendship with Namjoon, the more he had gotten to know the young healer, the more he had also come to appreciate him as a friend… and maybe something more.

“I will not let your view of me dictate our friendship! Namjoon can make his own choices! He is a brilliant smart man!”

“He is missing.”

“What?” Jackson stared at her confused, this was not what he expected.

“We think he has been kidnapped.” the way the old woman was speaking as a matter of factly “, and I don’t trust anybody of our mages to find him, so here we are.” She gave him a bunch of wrapped up papers “this is all I have managed to gather about it, I trust you and the crown prince to do right about this. This is all of your faults after all, in rushing to please you two he has gotten himself into this.”

Jackson felt slightly guilty, Namjoon wasn’t getting as much out of all of this as him, and Mark was, most of this was all coming from the fact that he had a giant bleeding heart and wanted to do the best he could for everybody.

None of them had thought about the fact that they might be putting Namjoon in danger, they knew that he was the one being most open with his community about what was going on, he was actively recruiting mages to help teach the slum, and it had gone really well!

A lot of the mages coming to teach where nice people, Seokjin a plant mage older than Namjoon was helping teach the growth of herbs, and he had even taught them how to grow nonlethal poisons they could use in their less… legal businesses. Jimin and Jungkook were two of the newest mages to join them, both extremely popular with the children and always kind.

He looked over the pages, “you think mages kidnapped him?”

“I don’t think, I am almost 100 per cent sure, as Namjoon came to me with your idea, I agreed with him. I think what you guys are doing is important and necessary.” she stared him down with an unnerving glare “But I also thought that you guys had thought it over, that you guys would protect each other! He got captured on his way down here. You have so many spies and little birds, and you couldn’t keep one clumsy mage safe. Neither you nor the crown prince, and now my Namjoon has to pay the price.”

Jackson could feel the bile gather in his stomach, he knew this, he knew that she was right, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t feel guilty. Both Mark and Jackson were trained in combat, they could defend themselves. Namjoon on the other hand, he might be the most talented healer, with an almost endless amount of stamina, but he couldn’t produce any offensive magic at all to defend himself.

He looked over the papers that she had given up “Chanyeol?” the picture he was looking at was familiar to him, Park Chanyeol, he was a war mage, he wasn’t the leader of the war mages, but he was up there, slowly working himself towards a position to take over it. He was also from an old noble house, it made sense.

It was also somebody that they had a schedule for, somebody that they had shown before, finally some good news. They had started shadowing him because he was acting weird, now that weirdness made sense “I know him, I am also pretty sure I know where he is keeping Namjoon.”

“Now go find my son, I expect him back in one piece, or I will make you regret your life.”

Jackson knew she didn’t mean it seriously, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking “aren’t you a healer? How would you hurt me?”

“Just cause Namjoon refuses to learn it doesn’t mean I do, as healers we have complete control of not just our own body but others, would you like to sweat to death as I raise the temperature of your body? That is just one of the many ways that healing can kill. There is a reason that we don’t let new healers practice on non-mages for many years, I assume you have seen my son cut himself to let his students heal him? The reason we do that is if they by accident mess with something in our body, we can fix it quickly, and nobody has to die. Healing work is hard and requires a lot of knowledge, that knowledge can be used to hurt people, most of us learn it. Namjoon refused, he has always been too soft of a heart.”

That sounded like Namjoon, their soft and sweet Namjoon… no since when was Namjoon theirs? Jackson didn’t have time to think over things like this! He had to go and save Namjoon, and he had to go talk to Mark as well, he knew that the crown prince would never forgive him if he held this information back.

A quick message through the magic paper and Mark was informed, the answer back was instant as Jackson was told to wait for him. He wanted to argue that it was too early for Mark to be able to sneak into the slum, but then he thought about how he would have felt if Mark had been the one informed of what had happened to Namjoon, and they hadn’t told him. Yeah, he couldn’t deny Mark this.

Namjoon’s mother had to go back to the university again, it couldn’t be known that she had told Jackson what had happened if it got out Chanyeol would expect something, and they wanted to get to him quickly without him expecting anything.

Only one hour later did Mark show up through the tunnels, he was in his normal slum outfit, but he was also armed to the teeth. It was clear that he was aware of the fact they were going to go out and pick a fight.

“So what is the plan?” Mark had a grim expression on his face, the more Jackson had gotten to know Mark, the more he had come to see the crown prince as the nice and sweet person he really was. But at that moment, Jackson could remember the fact that Mark was trained to be the war king, he was trained for fighting, for leading soldier on the battlefield.

He knew that Mark hated that part, he hated the idea of having to lead a war, to kill people, but it was also clear that Mark would not hesitate a second to kill if it meant that Namjoon would be returned to them. They were going to rain hell on Chanyeol for daring to touch Namjoon.

“He has a place in low town where he has gone a lot recently, we are almost completely sure that it is where he is keeping Namjoon, so I am gonna grab a few of my most trusted men and get him out of there. Mark you don’t have to come, there is a high chance that we have to kill påeople, and I don’t want to force you into a position where you have to kill people.” Jackson was not gonna force Mark to go against his nature.

But the expression in Mark’s eyes was telling a different story “I don’t wanna lead a war, I don’t wanna kill soldiers or innocent people, but this is different, this Chanyeol guy isn’t innocent he kidnapped Namjoon. For that, he is gonna have to suffer,”

Jackson slowly nodded, he understood what Mark meant, he couldn’t stop himself from pulling Mark close into a hug “We are gonna find him I promise you, they are gonna regret ever touching him.”

Mark was hugging him back just as tightly “we can’t fail him, Jackson, we need him, it can’t just be the two of us. We have seen too many things, we are too hard around the edges. We have seen too many things, we need him to remember the soft and innocent side of humanity. Just like we remind him that the world isn’t sunshine and rainbows, we complete each other that way. We can’t just be the two of us!”

“Mark what are you…” Jackson didn’t get to finish the sentence as Mark hugged him tighter.

“You know what I am saying, I know now isn’t the time, but I know you feel it as well.”

All Jackson could do was a nod, he knew what Mark meant, and it felt good to know that it wasn’t just him who was feeling it that it was right. They still needed to talk to Namjoon, but Jackson was almost sure that he would hear the same thing. They had to find Namjoon, they had to talk to him, they had to get him back.

So they prepared their raid on Chanyeol’s low time house, it was fairly easy to convince the people in the houses next to it to ignore what they were preparing to do. Namjoon had helped the woman in one of the houses when she thought she was gonna lose her baby before she was born.

Jackson gathered 4 men, Jaebum his second in command, his boyfriend Jinyoung who was the most powerful mage that Jackson knew other than Namjoon. Normally they wouldn’t dare to risk bringing Jinyoung along, but Jinyoung’s gift was specifically good in neutralising other people's magic. From the back Yugyeom and Jungkook would enter, while Jungkook wasn’t one of Jackson’s people, he had recently started to see Yugyeom in a more… sexual nature. It was what had lead to Jungkook actually hearing about it.

It turned out that Jungkook was originally trained as a war mage, but after seeing actual war at the age of 16 while training in Carthak, he had returned home to the islands and started his training as a healer. But he still cared for and loved Namjoon like a brother, he had wanted to come along to help them. At first, Jackson hadn’t wanted Jungkook to go with them, but Jungkook had effectively argued that they didn’t know how many mages they were gonna face down, it could be many or it could be just Chanyeol, they would need him.

Jackson couldn’t really argue that, plus he could understand Jungkook. Namjoon was part of the family that the younger had chosen for himself, and it was something that he wanted to defend it.

The house was supposed to be empty, but Jackson could see that all the doors had recently been opened, he let Jinyoung remove all the magic traps that would have alarmed the house owners of a breakup, then he took one deep breath and signalled everything to start.

It was clear that none of the guards that Chanyeol had hired was actually expecting there to be any troubles, they were all easily removed by Mark’s bow, Jackson’s daggers and the help from everybody else.

There was only one moment where somebody had sneaked up on Yugyeom, and Jackson could feel the panic in him, but next moment that person was blown to pieces. Everybody seemed to stare at Jungkook who had the light green of his gift pooling around his hands as he was staring at the remains “I couldn’t… I couldn’t let him kill Yugyeom.”

Even tho everybody was clearly shaking, Yugyeom threw himself at the mage hugging him close and pressing his lips to Kookies. The two exchanged words that weren’t heard by everybody else, but it didn’t need to. It was clear what was being talked about.

For a few minutes, everybody was in a slight panic as they cleared out the house and there was no trace of Namjoon there. No that couldn’t be right, Namjoon had to be here! All the guards were here, why would they be here if Namjoon wasn’t?

Then Mark found a trap door, as soon as they opened the door the spell that was keeping in the sound was broken, and crying was heard in the basement, but it wasn’t the crying they expected. They expected Namjoon to be crying in fear or anything like that, but when they slowly moved down into the basement, the view they got was completely different. Namjoon was on his knees on the ground, ropes that he had bound in was next to him, but he was sitting with Chanyeol on his lap, Chanyeol was completely limb in Namjoon’s lap and a few steps closer it was clear that Chanyeol was actually dead.

Namjoon was lightly shaking him, tears streaming down his face “please wake up, please wake up. I didn’t mean to do it! I didn’t mean to! But you scared my magic! It went into defensive! I didn’t mean to! Wake up! I know you didn’t mean to hurt me! You were just scared of the changes! Please wake up Yeollie!”

Mark and Jackson looked at each other before moving over to Namjoon, crouching next to him, Jackson wasn’t sure what to say, he wasn’t even sure what had happened. All he and Mark could do was reach out and lightly touch him.

It seemed that first at that point that Namjoon realised that they were there, his eyes were stained with tears, his cloth was ripped, but he was in one piece “I never meant to kill him! He held a knife to my throat, he pushed a little too far, and it started to bleed… I panicked, I didn’t want to die, I had so many things left to do! I didn’t wanna die! But I didn’t wanna kill him either! My magic, it just went insane… It stopped his heart.”

Mark reached up and softly brushed away a few of his tears “Joonie, this is not your fault.”

“But I killed him!” he was shaking both his head and Chanyeol’s corpse with a desperate measure “I didn’t want to do this! I swear! I am not a monster.”

He sounded so desperate, Mark and Jackson exchanged one look, and without even exchanging words, they both knew what to do. Jackson gently pried the corpse from Namjoon’s hands, he kinda wanted to spit on it for what Chanyeol had done to Namjoon, but he decided it probably wasn’t the place.

Mark took Namjoon’s face between his fingers forcing Namjoon to look at him “I’m I a monster? I killed people to get to you, is Jackson a monster?”

Jackson personally would agree to the last part, but he felt like it might not be the thing Mark was trying to prove, instead he kept silence rubbing a hand up Marks' neck to show his support.

Namjoon shook his head “of course not! You guys could never be!” It was kinda adorable how he wanted to defend Mark and Jackson’s hypothetical honour.

“Then why would you be a monster,” Mark leaned his forehead against Namjoon’s “I know you want to believe in the good of people, and I know that you saw Chanyeol as a friend, but he would have hurt you, you didn’t kill him in cold blood, you defended your own life”

“But he wasn’t a bad guy!”

“I didn’t say he was, but people do terrible things if they believe it’s the right thing. Your mother things he has become radicalised.” Jackson spoke up, remembering the words the lead healer had said to him.

“You talk to my mum?” Namjoon finally broke his gaze at Mark, looking instead at Jackson.

Jackson nodded “she was the one who came to me and told us that you were gone, we were sent to get you back.” He could see for a second how Namjoon’s face fell, and Jackson was quick to adding something “but we didn’t come and find you for your mother, we came and found you cause you mean the world to us. Namjoon we…”

He never got to finish that sentence as Jaebum interrupted them “We need to clear out of here, make the bodies disappear and clean up Jungkook's mess before Jinyoung magically scrubs it down so none of us can get traced to here.”

It took a while to sneak Namjoon out of there to get Namjoon out of there, he didn’t want to leave Chanyeols body behind, he wanted to admit to the mage council what had happened, he had somehow gotten it into his head that he would get the death sentence.

Mark and Jackson had done everything they could to calm him down, but no matter how much the tried it was impossible, he had ended up crying himself to exhaustion, falling asleep leaning on Jackson’s body.

Even tho Jackson had things to do, he had been too scared to move and accidentally wake Namjoon, Mark had to leave, he had pressed a kiss to Namjoon’s sleeping forehead and then with a bit of hesitation a kiss to Jackson’s lips.

Both for a second just stared at each other, then at Namjoon, it was clear to both of them that they would have to talk about this with Namjoon later, but that moment wasn’t the right time.

Jackson had ended up calling for Namjoon’s mother, he didn’t actually know what to do with Chanyeol’s corpse, the rest of the henchmen had easily been disposed of, the majority of them were mercenaries from out of town, and Jackson didn’t have it in him to feel sorry for them.

When she had arrived, Jackson explained everything to her, and she took a deep sigh of relief, but then she told Jackson a story “it’s not the first time his magic acts like this, once before it killed somebody. Last time it was a big dog, he was no more than 5 years old, but he had sneaked down to the infirmary for animals. It was a big ugly old thing, it was even bigger than him. Namjoonie didn’t know any better, he thought all dogs were friends, and that dog was clearly in pain.  
The mages working on it had given up, the body has to be willing to receive the help we are giving it, and that dog had given up. It was left to die, we were hoping to help it pass in the most humane way ever, but Namjoon didn’t know that. He just loved dogs, he wanted to help it.  
It attacked him, he panicked, and his magic felt threatened, so it defended him the only way it knew too. It went inside the beast and stopped its heart.” she looked at Namjoon where he was still sleeping on Jackson, she softly brushed a piece of hair from his eyes “he never forgives himself for it, after that he always saw himself as some kind of monster. That is why he reacted like he did, it was all the feelings coming back to him.”

“He isn’t a monster, Mark and I are gonna do everything we can to make him realise that.” Jackson was looking at Namjoon again, the healer looked so soft and sweet leaning against him.

“I know, I trust that you are both gonna treat my son with the respect he deserves, and you will look out for him. He tends to believe the best in people, which can backfire.” she sighed a little “Chanyeol worked alone, and he does often work on experimental magic, we can make this seem like an accidental death, that some of his magic backfired and he died of a heart attack. That should make Namjoon feel better, that way nobody will know his involvement and his family and friends will have a body to bury.”

“Do you want to take him back with you now?” Jackson personally didn’t want to let Namjoon go, but he also knew that he couldn’t keep him here if his mother thought it was better that he went home with her.

The elderly woman shook her head “no let him stay here, your presence will help him be more calm and relaxed. Plus both you and Mark have something to tell him if I am not wrong.”

Now Jackson could see why Namjoon always said that she knew things she had no reason to know, he flushed a crimson colour “how do you know.”

“When you get as old as me you learn to see things that other people don’t, don’t worry. I promise you it’s gonna be okay.” she put a hand on his shoulder “you did good, you all did well. I can’t say that it is the last time that you will all face hardness like this, I tried to scry for it, but the gods wouldn’t show me anything. But I can say that I am sure, when you are all together, you can get through anything, no matter how hard it is, or have challenged it is.”

She went to leave, but hesitating a second at the door “You have my blessing, not that either of you ever needed it, but you still have it. And I hope that if you ever need the help, you will come to me. You mean a lot to my son, and that alone means that you are considered family.”

Jackson felt a little choked up at that, she was right that he didn’t need her blessing, but having it meant a lot, and it was a long time since somebody had told him that they considered him family “thank you, master healer,, I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

A wicked smile was on her lips, “call me Boah, I look forward to seeing you again Jackson Wang, treat my son with care.”

For a few moments after she left all Jackson could do was stare after her, it was hard for him to really understand what had just happened, this was not what he had expected at all. He looked down at Namjoon, peacefully sleeping “we will take good care of you, I promise. Nothing like this will ever happen to you again, you mean too much for us.”

Even tho Jackson had things to do, he sat with Namjoon for many hours while the younger slept. Both had warned him that it would take a while for Namjoon to wake up and not to be worried about it, he had used powers that he wasn’t used to and it had taken a lot out of him.

When Namjoon finally woke up, it was night time, and Mark had returned from the palace where he had been all day, the two were talking to each other while Jackson was reading over documents.

“Where I’m I?” Namjoon was rubbing his eyes, confused about what was going on around

“You are at my headquarters; still, you fell asleep, and we decided to let you sleep, you seemed like you needed it.” Mark had gathered around as well, looking over Namjoon like he couldn’t completely get that Namjoon was actually okay.

It took almost three hours for them to explain everything to Namjoon and calm him down as he had another crying fit.

“Please don’t hate me.” Tears were still streaming down his face at that point, eyes red from all the crying.

Jackson was still holding Namjoon in his arms, so it was Mark job to gather Namjoon’s face between his hands “we would never hurt you, we could never!”

That was it, Jackson knew that it was now or never. “Namjoon we love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked this way to long shit, now there is just one day left.
> 
> Hope you guys liked this!
> 
> Tommorrow is gonna be so so long, it's insane >.<
> 
> Day 1 - Soulmates verse  
> Day 2 - Magical Girl verse  
> Day 3 - Hogwarts verse  
> Day 4 - Hanahaki  
> Day 5 - Hybrid  
> Day 6 - Middle ages verse  
> Day 7 - Omega verse
> 
> Hope to see you guys in 24 hours!
> 
> If you want to hear more from me, see teasers for my next stories or just see me rambling over how much I wish we would all get along no matter our fandom, this is my twitter!  
> [My writing twitter](https://twitter.com/PrussiaSheiala)


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